Housing Counts

Since 2002, the Family Housing Fund and HousingLink have published the Housing Counts data set to provide housing leaders and other stakeholders an accurate and consistent way of tracking affordable housing (rental and homeownership) production and preservation each year in the seven-county Twin Cities region, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, and suburban metropolitan communities.

Since its inception, Housing Counts has tracked investment in projects representing more than 30,000 units of affordable housing throughout the seven-county region.

In 2017, a grand total of 4,214 units of housing were funded for new development or preservation across the region. Saint Paul had a banner year for new production, with more than 1,000 homes created, including more than 300 new rental options for people earning extremely low incomes. Minneapolis led in the development of new homeownership opportunities, creating 18 new affordable homes for buyers. Suburban communities, meanwhile, were most active in preservation, with more than 1900 units of affordable housing acquired or rehabbed to ensure their affordability into the future.

The list of projects identifies how many affordable units are planned/preserved at three levels of affordability—30 percent, 50 percent, and 60 percent of the area median income (AMI). This corresponds with affordability restrictions required by certain funding streams.

The data set counts units in the year their project financing first closes and includes only developments with public and/or private capital funding that includes affordability obligations.

The report tables divide the projects into three main categories: new production of rental units, new production of homeownership units, and preservation/stabilization of existing rental units.

Rental assistance to renters, financial assistance directly to home buyers, and shelter beds are not included in this data set.

Developments that are designed specifically to serve seniors are indicated with an asterisk in the reports.

Properties included on the preservation/stabilization list were especially at risk of being lost due to major deterioration, financial crisis, or conversion to market-rate rents. This list does not include essential routine capital improvements.

Demolition permit numbers are included to give some context to the production numbers in relation to the number of units lost in the region’s housing stock. However, the demolition number comes from demolition permit issues only; because of this, the actual number of units lost, the affordability level, and the condition of these lost units is unknown.